Books That Help You Understand
What You Feel and What Others Carry
A curated collection of resources to deepen emotional intelligence, strengthen connection, and support more compassionate care in healthcare and beyond.
When you purchase any of the references listed in on this resource page using the following links, proceeds of the purchase from Amazon go toward fundraising for the next set of films, so if you leave the site and decide to purchase the book at a later date, please come back and use the links below in support of the BREATHE: Honoring The Voices of Healthcare Initiative.
A practical and inspiring guide to personal storytelling, this book draws from Sandra Marinella’s work with veterans and cancer patients, as well as her research on the healing power of writing. Through real stories, it shows how sharing and shaping personal experiences can build resilience and help make sense of loss.
Written by a physician living with chronic illness, this book explores how storytelling and writing can help process diagnosis, navigate difficult emotions, and rebuild a sense of identity. Through guided reflections and real patient stories, it offers a path toward healing, resilience, and connection.
This guide encourages you to look inward and discover the stories within your own experiences. Through reflection, examples, and writing prompts, it helps you shape personal memories into meaningful and authentic stories.
This book offers a gentle, structured path to reconnect with creativity later in life, helping you navigate change and rediscover purpose. Through simple practices like journaling and reflection, it supports clarity, growth, and a renewed sense of direction.
This book offers practical and encouraging guidance on writing as a creative practice, helping you build confidence, overcome doubt, and express your thoughts with clarity. It shows how writing can deepen awareness and help you better understand your own life.
RESOURCES
This compassionate guide introduces expressive writing, a simple practice backed by research that helps process emotions, reduce stress, and improve overall well being. With real examples and practical exercises, it shows how writing can support healing and strengthen both mental and physical health.
This guide from The Moth offers practical tools to help you uncover, shape, and share meaningful stories in any setting. It shows how personal experiences can be turned into stories that connect, engage, and leave a lasting impact.
This book explores journaling as both a personal and shared practice, showing how writing can support reflection, connection, and growth. It highlights how creating space to write and share can deepen understanding, build compassion, and bring clarity to life experiences.
This guide explores how sharing stories can deepen connection, empathy, and self understanding. It encourages you to recognize and strengthen your own stories as a way to build a stronger sense of identity and fulfillment.
This book shares real stories from NICU nurses, offering a window into the emotional and complex realities of caring for critically ill infants. Through reflection and guided questions, it supports deeper understanding, empathy, and connection to the human side of healthcare.
This book explores how the stories you tell yourself shape your identity, decisions, and life. It helps you recognize hidden patterns in your thinking and take control of them, so you can move from unconscious habits to intentional growth.
This book introduces the idea of a forever letter, a meaningful way to share your values, wisdom, and love with the people who matter most. With real examples and simple guidance, it helps you create something deeply personal that can be returned to again and again.
This collection brings together Julia Cameron’s core works on creative recovery, offering a guided path to reconnect with creativity and build a more meaningful and expressive life.
This book explores how writing personal stories can support healing, reflection, and deeper understanding. Through real experiences and guided prompts, it shows how storytelling can help make sense of life and create space for growth and connection.
This practical guide breaks storytelling into simple, clear steps, helping you shape and share personal stories with confidence. It covers everything from structure to delivery, making it easier to connect with others through engaging and meaningful stories
This book shows how everyday moments can become meaningful stories, offering simple techniques to help you tell them with clarity and impact. It highlights how storytelling can deepen connection and help you better understand your own experiences.
This book explores the craft of memoir through both technique and lived experience, showing how writing about the past can deepen self understanding and emotional clarity. With insights from Mary Karr’s teaching and personal journey, it offers a thoughtful guide to turning memory into meaningful story.
This collection brings together Julia Cameron’s most influential works on creative recovery, offering a structured path to reconnect with creativity and build a more meaningful and expressive life.
This book explores how storytelling works through the lens of psychology and neuroscience, showing why certain stories resonate and how they shape human behavior. It offers practical insights to help you create more meaningful and engaging stories.
This book explores the emotional realities of being a doctor, revealing how feelings like empathy, fear, and hope shape patient care. Through real stories and research, it offers a deeper understanding of the human side of medicine.